reviews 5 – 8 Infant/Junior continued
Kate dancing on stage. Kate’s friend Maddy is terribly hurt when her parents decide to separate, and Kate must learn to be understanding even when Maddy doesn’t seem to want her to be. Then there is anger! Grownups can get angry just like children, but often their anger has to do with children doing something dangerous or something they shouldn’t. Sam and Kate get very angry from time and verbal. There is jealousy too, and Sam remembers how he felt when Kate was born and he no longer had his parents’ full attention. The running story line is full of highly recognisable events in a family’s life, and even Fuzzy Bean shows emotions – fear during thunderstorms and jealousy when Kate arrives as a baby. The pictures, several vignettes on each page, sometimes with speech lines above, are full of movement and feelings both positive and negative. This is a very real family in very real this beautifully. The book will prove an libraries and a great aid to discussion in families too.
ES How To Look After Your Kitten
Helen Piers, ill. Kate Sutton, Wide Eyed Books, 32pp, 978-1-8478-0649-9, £6.99 hbk
This well organised handbook covers everything a young cat owner needs to know about how to care for and train their pet. The contents page shows the book’s comprehensive coverage and for me is this author’s deep knowledge about the topic and her ability to convey important information in a helps a family check that they can meet a cat’s needs before going ahead with the purchase. While keeping a cat is
8 – 10 Junior/Middle continued
readers and for publishing. Readers who have yet to acquaint themselves consider putting this right as soon as possible. They will be in for a rare treat. NT
Once Upon a Place
Eoin Colfer (compiler), illus. PJ Lynch, Little Island Books, 978-1-9104-1137-7, 210pp, £11.99 hbk
who isn’t, perhaps, a bear? A corpse that doesn’t realise it is a corpse? A poem about a strange friendship? Or a meeting at a bus stop? Well, here,
for some pets, it is made clear that there will be costs. Food, a litter tray, grooming kit, and a cat bed are the basics but vaccinations cost money and if the cat should become ill there There are eighty different breeds of
pedigree cat and the author gives some information to help with the choice. I did not realise that the Ragdoll cat is so picked up! As well as sections advising on feeding, health and training there is welcome recognition in ‘Playtime’ that cats can become bored and even beyond kittenhood ‘he will still want to play sometimes’; it is kind to provide cotton reels, soft toys and even balls of scrumpled up newspaper. The section on ‘Cat Talk’ shows how a cat’s body language can indicate mood and needs. Information books have to be attractive to has great aesthetic appeal and much thought has been given to the design. The pages are uncluttered and the black and white drawings of the cats add greatly to the reader’s enjoyment
. MM 8 – 10 Junior/Middle
How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury
Cressida Cowell, Hodder, 493pp, 978-1-4449-1658-4, £12.99 hbk
This is the twelfth and last book in Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon series. Like its predecessors, by humour and compassion. Readers however young will soon guess that the hero, mild and appeasing young Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, is never really going to succumb to the numerous diabolical attempts on his life. Even so the situations he keeps no escape and his enemies are indeed fearsome. These are described not just in print but in the zany, scratchy, black line illustrations, also supplied by the author, that frequently stretch wildly over a double page spread. between having fun and conveying a genuine sense of darkness. Writing and illustrating to a high order is demanding enough for
one book. But composing twelve separate adventures since 2003, all equally captivating, is an astonishing achievement. This last story perhaps lingers a little too long over its repeated insistence on the importance of love and trust above everything else, but Cowell has earned the right to come on so she clearly feels strongly about. She also loves her dragons and only parts with them at the very last moment, for the rest of time but well away from prying human eyes. Before that, these mighty creatures share space with mainly boastful Viking warriors all of whom bear inventively comic names and, like the dragons, tend to be child-like both in their reasoning and in the way they can switch at lightning speed from one emotion to its opposite.
With the whole series already selling over seven million copies
in this anthology of short stories and poems commissioned by Eoin Colfer as Irish Laureate. Each of the stories is inspired by a place in Ireland and yet, like all good stories, they are not tied to any place and reach out to readers everywhere. There are ghostly stories, fantastical stories, family stories and a clever detective story that has a neat twist. Then there are the poems, teasing the imagination. Each story has been written by a different author including Colfer himself. Here is real feast – and like all collections, you will have your own favourite. Drawing all together are the atmospheric illustrations and decorations by P.J Lynch. There is no colour to distract the attention. Rather the prose is enhanced and deepened by
monochrome; the work of an artist to teachers and parents looking for something a little different to share or tempt young readers wanting for a shorter, yet intriguing, read. FH
The Wonder Garden
Kristjana S Williams (ill) and Jenny Broom (author), Wide Eyed Editions, 48pp, 978-1-8478-0647-5, £20 hbk
book which is bound to appeal to young imaginations. The beautifully designed front cover invites young learners to step through gold embossed gates
the
These ‘gardens’ are the Amazon Rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef, the Chihuahuan Desert, the Black Forest and the Himalayas. The plants, in each of these distinctive habitats coloured double spreads. Each habitat is shown as an ecosystem made up of plants and animals that have adapted and survived. So we learn that in the Chihuahuan Desert the Gila Monster is a little reptile which has become able over time to store fat in its tail, nourishment ‘which it relies on to survive the harsh winters’. the biological facts, this illustrator also shows the heart and spirit of each habitat. For me the most dramatic and folklore, which comes through in the atmospheric pictures of the Black Forest ‘ancient and enigmatic’ and ‘a corner of the globe where blur’. Going through this romantic wild how it inspired fairytales like Hansel and Gretel and Rapunzel. This is not an encyclopedia or a conventional information book: facts about the different plants and animals are interesting and pertinent but fairly brief. The creatures, too, are an artist’s impression of them rather than being But the book shows powerfully the great variety of the natural environments, scenery and creatures of the earth. – one that could lead to their own MM
The Doldrums: A Badly Planned Adventure
Nicholas Gannon, ill. Nicholas Gannon, Harper Collins, 340pp, 978-0-0081-4939-0, 12.99 hbk
novel reminds us that the most enjoyable part of any adventure is the planning process. It’s in his blood. He lives in his grandparents’ house – an enormous stuffed animals with which Archer has deep and meaningful conversations. Sometimes he questions his own sanity, but ‘Am I crazy?’ is not an
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